Safety expert to develop autonomous worldwide mining safety standards

A global safety expert is in Perth to assess mining expertise in autonomous technology in order to develop a set of safety standards worldwide.

Daniel Roley is the chairman of Swiss-based International Organisation for Standards (ISO) which has published more than 19,500 international standards for industries from technology to food safety to agriculture.

ISO is now working to develop standards for the manufacture and operation of autonomous mining technology, which is fast becoming the face of mining in Western Australia.

Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Fortescue Metals Group are all using or trialling the technology at their Pilbara mine sites.

Rio, BHP, and equipment manufacturers Komatsu, Libherr and Caterpillar will all take part in the safety workshops where Daniel Roley will assess what safety guidelines they already follow.

"We're still in the stage of identifying what all the risks are," he said.

"Australia really is the leader in autonomous technology, that's why we're having meetings here to gain input from the users, the regulators and people who have a lot of experience in this area.

"We are looking for information from Western Australia to benefit from its experience with autonomous mining machines as we build up our new standards on autonomous mine safety."

Mr Roley said establishing the standards now, while the technology was still new, was critical.

"This [autonomous mining equipment] is a new technology that's just starting but will be very important in the future," he said.

"Within our ISO committee we try to anticipate what are the new technologies, what are the new applications of machines, and in the early stages develop safety criteria so that the technology can be implemented safely."

Shifting quickly to autonomous mining

Rio Tinto is the most advanced user of autonomous technology of Australia's three biggest miners.

So far it has integrated 53 autonomous trucks in operations at its Yandicoongina, Nammuldi and Hope Downs 4 mines in the Pilbara and used them to move more than 200 million tonnes of material.

As part of the three day forum Daniel Roley toured BHP's remote operation centre (IROC) in Perth.

BHP's Tony Ottaviano said developing international standards for the industry was critical.

"BHP's involvement is around participating in the working group the government has set up," he said.

"It's a great initiative that the government is including industry in the formulation of its thinking around putting in standards for autonomy."

BHP currently runs nine autonomous trucks at its Jimblebar mine in the north west and plans to increase that to 12 as part of its trial.

"The plan is the finish the trial, evaluate it, and make sure we have a robust business case, we're got a safe product and if all that adds up we will potentially roll it out across our operations," Mr Ottaviano said.

"Autonomy is the journey that a number of the large mining companies are taking, so it is the future, so having fit for purpose and appropriate standards by a world-recognised body like ISO is critical."

BHP already follows a number of ISO standards.

"We comply to a number of ISO standards across our company, quality for example and how we ship our product, there's also standards around how we test our products," Mr Ottaviano said.

"Our customers need to be confident the product they're getting in the ship is the product we've promised, and when we give them a certificate of authentication they need to understand what sampling procedures we've used, and we say we've simply followed the ISO standard for sampling."

Adopting industry-wide best practice

The Department of Mines and Petroleum also has a major role to play.

The DMP's Peter O'Loughlin said the State Government would share its safety regulations with the committee to make sure the best safety guidelines were developed.

It will be a little bit of a challenge for us as we won't just be working with the machine, we'll be working with the machine and its system which will be the control centre, the support.

Daniel Roley

"We have developed the guidance material with the equipment manufacturers, the local mining companies and expert consultants to get to this stage," he said.

"We'd like to have those standards for automation included [for ISO].

Once ISO has gained an insight into how the autonomous mine sites are run Mr Roley said the organisation would work to develop safety guidelines which would apply to both the manufacture and operation of machinery.

"It will be a little bit of a challenge for us as we won't just be working with the machine, we'll be working with the machine and its system which will be the control centre, the support," he said.

"What we want to add to this is the communication, the positioning and the control to address the whole system that will include new requirements and making sure the machine can run by itself."

Mines Minister Bill Marmion said the Government would consider using ISO standards as part of its regulation of the industry.

"It might well be if ISO come up with some very good specifications that we might specify ISO standards," he said.

"The Department of Mines and Petroleum might say you've got to be credited to ISO standards and if you are we will be very happy with your operations."

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